Tag: Supporter Thoughts (Writing About Patreon)

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A Return From Exile

What a time to exist.

Summer has been a mixed mistress. On one melty hand, we have the oppressive heat married to the stress allocated to the failure of technology. I have better grasp of a range of the cost of home appliance home repairs than I possessed back in the halcyon days of spring, and the wallet, it does burn with the summer blaze. On the other more audible appendages, we succeeded at a creative endeavor we had been working on for years, and found the joy of writing and crafting once more. A joy that has brought us back to here and advised our heart to revisit our prolix side.

Hello there.

Retreating from oblivion and stepping through our umbral veil, I want to get what’s not working out of the way, and then dive into the future.

To begin, right now we’re not streaming. This is a technological issue, as our hardware is currently being unruly. See the intro paragraph for the gremlin style curse befalling our household. I miss the streaming, but I’ve had the benefit of connected with communities filled with lovely people, some of which are not part of what I consider my streaming home turf. We’re not done with that side of things, just it’ll have to wait until we can repair the tech issues. For now, that’s a timetable of maybe October. Maybe later. We give no hard dates here until we’re certain.

August saw our return to the Dog Days of Podcasting. This is the yearly podcasting challenge developed by Kreg Steppe, and is a challenge to create and upload a month’s worth of podcasts during the month of August leading up to Dragon*Con. The challenge originated back in 2012, and that was the last time I completed it; that is, until 2022. This year, I completed all of my intended goals, creating a new NPC for almost every day of the month. I did take time to give myself a rest every five days, and I think that was a core reason I was able to push through in a manner that would have stumped me on the first or second weekend. I’m proud of the work, in terms of how much I made, the character concepts I explored, and that I was able to dip my toe back into podcasting. Part of me wants to do more, so we’ll see.

Speaking of podcasting, this week we’ll see a return to form of the Hiddennode. We’ve been hit or miss on the series since 2016. There’s only three episodes not tied to special projects like NaNoWriMo and Dog Days since the era of my bioptic vision came to a close, and it’s time to tidy the place up. I don’t plan on Hiddennode being an elaborate heavy production thing, but a revitalization to what made it a solid perching for me for over a decade. Which also means keeping more notes on media I’m consuming, things I’m doing, and being a better steward of my time. Much like the writing site, the podcast isn’t going to look pretty just yet. I’d rather get the projects started though, than wait for a perfect visual style. I understand one only gets a single first impression, but I’m focusing on those distant impressions rather than putting myself into a state of urgency when things are “perfect.”

Folding from there to writing, we are reimagining ourselves. I find myself wanting to pull away from grimdark. There’s value in that genre, and I’m still going to border the lands of dystopia and dark future, but I want the core of my stories to have a certain hope instilled in them. This means a few things, but most prominent is looking at my sci-fi setting again and finding out what it means to me now. That answer being the bright colors of my childhood entertainment and the draw I have of pulling out reimaginings of those legends for adult stories. But I don’t want to do “the power-rangers but what is they failed” anymore. I’d rather do “solo sentai in deep space does a found family” story. Sure, the old concept can still fit in there, but I don’t want the failure, the loss, the terror of the past to be the core anymore. I want characters to look forward to hope, with the challenges of the past serving as threads for their being, but not as their core identity. Hope, for a bright future, even if it’s a precious light that needs protection. That means revision to the setting, like rip it all down and start over revision. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be working on that and tossing patrons a few example excerpts of what’s happening.

That’s going to be our Patreon goal for the next few weeks as we get the engine rolling again. Concepts, old stuff that won’t exist in a future project anymore, and more general updates. I want to make that space feel worth it, and I feel I haven’t been a good caretaker of it. I aim to change that. It’s going to become my home of accountability, and while not every detail will mark the feed, I intend to setup as much as I can to show where we are and what’s working and what’s troubling.

Time for some agenda notes:

  • New Monthly Blog Post (This thingie)
  • Kicking Hiddennode into gear, weekly
  • More Patreon Updates, weekly
  • Streaming is on hold until tech is fixed, TBD
  • Slipstream setting revision, this week
    • Maybe Short story by end of month (if not, by Mid-October)
    • Maybe NaNoWriMo this November for the setting.
  • Trackable project organization concepts for viewing, end of month
  • Website revisions, end of year
  • Maybe new NPC shorts, TBD
  • Write 100,000 more words by the end of year

I’m eager for the future. The invigorating feeling I have is touching on so many parts of my life. I miss this level of creative. I miss doing this much. I truly do. Just writing this post and seeing the word count on it jump higher and higher is giving me heart flutters. I can’t say for certain I’ll be perfect at what comes next. I know I need to brace myself for fallbacks, for stumbles, for health and other issues. Those WILL HAPPEN. There is no means of escape, but I can control how I return from those pauses. And I want to do better by them. I want to see my little corner of the net grow and entertain people with my unique sense of storytelling.

I feel worthy of it.

Now I have to prove it.

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The First Ascent

Setting goals, keeping perseverance, outreaching to others, and accepting help; these acts are what made this happen. These acts are what have made what started as a hope into a truth. What made April 4, 2020, our founding day of affiliation. Thank you, all of you, who have helped make this possible, who have hyped me, who have watched, and who have followed. Each of these are stones that have set a foundation together, and made the climb up the mountain possible. Thank you.

And that’s how we’re going to start April.

We’ll launch with streaming content since we’re already on the high of the topic with the affiliate announcement. Last month we set expectations across a number of MMOs, but found ourselves realigning about mid-month. Destiny 2’s Season of the Worthy is fun, but it didn’t quite scratch the itch of previous Seasons. We’re still playing it but it’s showing up less on stream than previous months. Similarly, Warframe also is less present on the main line. Operation Scarlet Spear has fun content but without the draw of the rest of the clan, I’m less inclined to throw it into co-op content. Monster Hunter World co-op content, on the other hand, is still going strong. We reached the endgame two weeks ago, and have been playing with the post Iceborne content in the Guiding lands. That said, it may be soon time to move past active MHW content, and we might be looking at something new in the future.

Fridays and post-raid Saturdays we’ve been playing a new single player experience, Cross Code. This game is a lovely action-adventure RPG puzzler, reminiscent of Secret of Evermore and other SNES titles. It is amazing. The game play is smooth on keyboard and mouse, the puzzles range from cute to I HATE THIS SO MUCH. It’s a blast. The developers, Radical Fish Games, really put a lot of love into the project and it shows with how each region unfolds, the hidden lore, the animations, everything. I don’t know how much longer we have left with the game, but we’ll be digging in until it’s done. There’s also a new game plus option, but we won’t be jumping into that right away. It’ll be something worth revisiting later this year or the next.

A follow up on the Eden Raids in XIV, Dinner First has reached e8s, the new Shiva battle and the final part of the current raid tier. I’m rather happy with how the group has progressed. It’s certainly faster than we managed it last raid tier, and hearing the communication going through our team has been inspiring. By the next monthly update, we’ll be done, I’m certain.

There’s a lot to go over with the Twitch affiliate content, so I’ll be separating that out to another post. Thank you again to everyone that helped that happen.

Following up on the spring Patreon poll, we’ve started work on this month’s short story. The patrons wished for a revisit to the land of Manta and Draco Artifactium, and so I spent time digging into the setting and making sure anything I write becomes consistent with the past and future novels. Revisiting the agents of the dragon Harbinger and her world has been lovely, and working on the initial draft has gone well. Pop into the Patreon for details of how that story is progressing, and to get a free copy of it and January’s short story.

By this time next month, we’ll be chapters deep into the next novel. Epicus is ready to go in terms of outline, so once we’re done with the short story prep, we’ll hit the ground running. Ideally, we’ll knock out the first draft by June’s status update, and see a launch of the novel maybe two years after the release of Doppelganger: Draco Artifactium. Crossing fingers for this September.

Finally, let’s talk about the discord, The Hiddennode. We just went live with public access to the server, and supporter access areas. I’ll be mirroring update information from those supporter routes to those channels, so while fans can connect with each other on the discord, they can stay up to date with the different threads of my content. The discord is publicly open, so come visit. My goal is to grow that community; to make it a thriving center of cool people who like hanging out, like my content, and help me with developing more worlds. Everything starts small, so I know this will take time.

And that sums it up. April is ready to go with some awesome content coming in streams and writing releases. Stay tuned for more Patreon posts, join the Discord, and keep an eye on public announcements via Twitter, Facebook, and Twitch.

Otherwise, see you in May.

featured Image Source: Photo by Victor Duarte from Pexels
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It’s a Foundation

This post’s music is Watsky’s x infinity. The album is an interesting combination of high-powered flows and introspective reflection. They’re powerful words that acknowledge self-doubt and then reminds us of our worth. The album has a special place in my head because of where I was in life when it showed up. I had lost a dear friend and fellow writer in late 2016, and Watsky’s poetry helped ease that burden on my heart and head. These days, the album acts as a sort of rejuvenator to my writing. Unlike other music that inspires specific types of stories, x infinity is of a neutral energy. It sparks me to create, to build, to get pumped up for the work ahead. It makes me remember the past, and the promise to keep going I made to that dear departed friend.

So here we go kicking it forward.

Welcome to March.

Charlie’s been running through my head all month. She’s been rough with me, rarely telling me where she needs to go, and it makes me want to go back and rename the February post to “A Promising Foundation” as that is what the month was. I’ve realized I needed a larger cast than I expected with the story, but they’ve been blossoming into existence rather easily. January’s Hand of Void helped a lot with putting my head into the right place for creating within the Phased universe.

We’re a month out since HoV went live and that means I’m almost to the time to start writing the next short story. We’re awaiting the final tally from the patrons on which setting the April short story will be in and as of this posting there are still three days left before the poll closes. Want to help influence that vote? Join the Patreon at any level and you’ll be able to start reading and influencing what short stories come out going forward.

Speaking of the short stories, I’ve put into place the format that those will go out in the future. Every even story will be put to a vote of a number of settings, and then the odds will be a new story of my choosing. This will help make sure I get to the shorts I’d like to tell while also focusing heavily on the specific entries the patrons want to see grown.

With March we’ll be looking at the finished outline and then working on the April short story. Once that is knocked out, we’ll turn our sights back to Epicus and push through the second novel. I don’t want to give a deadline at this time as that’ll depend both on the progress through April’s short as well as the final steps towards the outline. Keep tabs on the weekly Patreon posts for more details on how we are progressing.

I met a number of interesting folks throughout February on Twitch. We spent a great deal of time with other streamers and trying to improve my knowledge and skills with community growth. As a direct result of that, nine new people have started following the channel, and we’re inching closer to that affiliate goal post.

March is looking to a be busy month in terms of keeping up with titles. The 10th sees the next season of Destiny 2 going live, Season of the Worthy. After last season’s push towards the title, I’m really looking forward to my second full season. Last month saw 5.2 go live for Final Fantasy XIV, and some time later this month more 5.2 content is going live. We’re still pushing against the next tier of the Eden raid, and have had some pretty nice successes two weeks in. Warframe is hinting at new content coming with Operation Scarlet Spear, and I’m eager to get back in there and experience the team work that was promised with Railjack. Monster Hunter World is also seeing new content coming along on PC, with two new monsters and a new region. Further, April will see PC becoming officially synced with consoles, so we can expect more fun in the New World. That’s, what? 4 MMO/MMO-ish games we’re trying to keep up with? Oh, and we’re also doing Space Engineers stuff, because why not? What a time.

Speaking of the Eden raids, the title image for this post includes the preview of Dinner First’s 5.2 desktop image. Rewinding a bit, February saw the first full month of Patreon weekly updates and that included some unique previews including the image above. But, here’s the full image now publicly available:

And that ties it all together. March is now locked in with more streaming progress and writing goals. Stay tuned for more Patreon posts, and public announcements via Twitter, Facebook, and Twitch.

Otherwise, see you in April.

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Status Update

I started today with a strange dilemma. My work day typically begins with loading up a stable of programs I use in relation to writing or editing the current novel project. Word for the core writing content, Scrivener for compiling, OneNote for my world building Wiki, Excel for a few of the math world building factors. It takes a few moments to get them all situated and where I like them on my displays, but in the past two years of work I’ve become adapt at getting started. Today, however, I’m having to pause because the routine is broken. You see, that novel is currently done.

I started the novel (Let’s just call it code name DAD for now) years ago, when I started braining storming a setting had started high fantasy but moved into a cyberpunk timeline. It wasn’t a copy of our own world, but many of the events that happened in our world would funhouse-mirror inside of Manta, just with the added factor of elves, orcs, dwarves, and elemental deities being a factor in world events. The threads of the story are almost a decade old, but the story of Micara, and her struggles in the city-state of New Castle were born back in 2014. By 2015, we had already created the first part of the book, part 2 came along in 2016, and March 2017 was the day the book was finished. A year came and went, and several surgeries later I was able to get back on task in March of 2018 to start the first full edit. Finally, after more than 4 years of writing, editing, world building, and podcasting, the book’s first edit draft came to fruition on July 2, 2018.

Is the book done yet? No. No, it’s currently at the editors, getting reviewed, poked, prodded, and overall ripped down and apart. I’m trying to not think about that too much because I’ve been in that book for so long. It’s hard for me to not want to think of the book as precious, but I have to distance myself from it. There will be more books in the future and I’m sure this will become an easier practice, but it’s the first one. That is special in its own right.

What next, then? Well this is a status update for July, let’s see what we’ve accomplished in the last month compared to our goals from May.

June Review

  • Writing – We accomplished the most important task here; finish the novel edits. Everything else was tertiary to that task. We didn’t do much here in the blog, nor over on Hiddennode, but that’s fine. Now’s the time between big project moments to get rolling with that.
  • Streaming – This has gone… poorly. I’m just not getting the population I want in here, and we’re coming up on our three-month deadline. It disappoints me, but I’m determined to not be broken by that disappointment. I’ve got a few new single player games I’m going to running with this week. Let’s see how they do (see below for details).
  • Podcasting – Hiddennode went the way of the blog. That’s okay. We’ll be picking it up soon. Hiddengrid/Codex podcast… That’s a long story, but one that I need to address in another post. I had ideas that didn’t work. That doesn’t mean I’m stopping.
  • Overall – We accomplished the most important task, but we slacked heavily in everything else. July is the chance to bring that forward. So let’s set some goals!

Writing

Focus: Short Story development

  • Bloggy activity
  • Short-Story-a-thon
  • Novel Concept

These three goals are meant to dominate my July. The blog content is meant to be the lifeline to my works to the rest of the world, or to sound more poetic “All roads lead through the blog.” The second goal focuses on the creation of short stories meant to sustain myself between the novels. While the novels are my flag ships, the shorts are meant to be teasers of content, tastes of my world, writing style, and way of thinking. I’m only supposed to write one per month, but hey if I can create a couple of them, I won’t be upset. Finally, I need to decide what to work on for the next novel. August is intended to be the month we outline and start book two. By the end of July I need to know what that concept will be.

Important links:

https://www.patreon.com/jsamueldiehl – sneak peeks, weekly updates, and more.

https://twitter.com/jsamueldiehl – Announcements and thoughts.

Streaming

Focus: Get on Schedule

  • Back to work
  • New Games
  • Schedule in place

The biggest problem with Streaming lately is I don’t keep to my schedule. That’s a flaw on my part I’m correcting this week. I’ll put out a post later this week with the new schedule listed. I’ve got several dozen games sitting in my Steam Library that I haven’t streamed yet, and keeping to my schedule will help me get through these. That’s really our goal for the month. The achievements I spoke about in May aren’t as important as just getting on schedule.

Important links:

https://www.twitch.tv/nulloperations – The official stream

https://twitter.com/nulloperations – Stream announcements and schedule changes

Podcasting

Focus: Hiddennode activity

  • The weekly audio -or- video log. We’re doing both on occasion.
  • StGM is going strong
  • New RPG content is delayed

June was a rough month for podcasting. July will have our Hiddennode return, but Codex and Hiddengrid needs some serious rethought. I’m iffy about those these days. I’ll have a workshop post later this month.

Important links:

http://www.hiddengrid.com/ – the podcast that was

http://www.hiddennode.com/ – the podcast that is

http://codexpodcast.com/ – the podcast that will be

https://www.patreon.com/hiddengrid/ – change is coming to this

July Goals

  • Short Stories
  • Weekly episodes of Hiddennode
  • Streaming Schedule
  • Weekly blog posts here
  • Weekly updates on both patreons

There’s a lot of good that happened in June, but we slacked here and there. July is about catching those issues and bring them back to the forefront. I’m not too panicked about those slips though because they took a back seat to the important editing project. That’s our flagship, and so it’s vital to be make the call to slice those off if they’re in the way. The flagship is currently docked through August and September, so it’s time for the skiffs to dot the lake.

I’m not sure where that metaphor is going. Boats I guess?

Okay, off to work. Have a great July and we’ll be back soon.

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Status Update

Let’s say it’s early May 2017. My wife is recovering from her hip replacement nicely, I’m still taking care of her but she’s getting stronger every day. I’m in between projects at the time, the plans being put on hold while I perform the important duties of household caretaker during her healing. One night, as I’m indulging in the grind for video game supremacy (really it was just trying to max level all jobs in Final Fantasy XIV before the Stormblood expansion drops), half of my left side vision drops. It’s like a curtain falling before my face and a cold fear fills my gut. I know what this is. I’ve seen this before.

It’s a retina detachment.

I debate what to do. Trish is recovering, but she still needs my help. If I go down for surgery I won’t be able to help her move about or take care of things around the house. I’ll be useless as caretaker and instead need a separate caretaker of my own. I’m quiet for the first few hours, but in the end I reveal my fears to her in the morning. She insists I go to my eye doctor. I relent, I go, but the doctor declares it’s just likely map dot fingerprint dystrophy. Nothing to be concerned about. Schedule an appointment with a retinalogist for next Friday and we’re good.

Cool. Nothing to worry about despite my vision darkening over the weekend. Nothing to worry about except that growing fear in my gut. I see the eye doctor at the specialist. Trish comes with me. She’s there when the gut punch come.

It is a retina detachment. No mistake this time.

There’s complications, issues with getting the surgery planned (What doctor can’t do surgery at a hospital?), and delays. I don’t have my surgery until early June.

The eye does not do well.

I’m out of sorts over the next year. Fear of loss of sight, the depression that sparked, my muddled mind between recovering from the anesthesia and pain meds after the surgery; it all adds up to a mess of creative garbage.

October comes, I have another surgery.

January comes, I have another surgery.

My vision isn’t restored. The eye isn’t dead, but it’s not working right. Daylight, bright lights, anything beyond a dimly lit room is rough for it. I wear a patch these days. Things are spinning.

But March comes. March brings with it desires for creativity. I start editing the book again, I start wanting to play role-playing games again, I want to do more than what I’ve been doing in the quagmire that’s been the past year, and I’m doing more. I’m doing this.

So after almost two years it’s time for a status report. The last one was July 2016, but it’s never too late to start back up. Because we’re starting back up we need to develop what we’re going to make the status report. I want this to be something valuable to me as well as followers of my content, so we’re going to start each report with a blotter on a given a section then thoughts on that section. Afterwards we’ll have a round up of what’s to come in the next month. Consider this our June 2018 update.

Writing

Focus: Editing Novel for publication

  • 61,515/136,966 words edited
  • We’ve completed part 1 of 3, and part 2 is editing smoothly
  • The blog is now relaunching

March saw us start the editing of DA:D, and the first third of the book held us up in April. We’re going to be doubling down in the coming days as I’d like to see part 2 finished by the beginning of June and have part 3 ready for Alpha Reading/Editing by no later than mid-month/the 15th. Once that happens we’ll pass this along to a few interested parties and then get started immediately with another novel. I’m still debating if I want to work on the TA.M. stuff or if I want to work on the J Samuel Diehl content. We’ll see.

Important links:

https://www.patreon.com/jsamueldiehl – sneak peeks, weekly updates, and more.

https://twitter.com/jsamueldiehl – Announcements and thoughts.

Steaming

Focus: Reaching Twitch Affiliate

  • Completed 2 of 4 needed achievements.
  • Completed 2 of 3 needed achievements for partner.

In early May we began streaming. This week marks our fourth week at the project, but it’s been slow going. I’m looking to expand my advertising of the stream over the next few days to try and draw people in. I also want to look into joining a community that might be able to assist with getting me into a group of active streamers. Admittedly this might mean pulling away from some of the normal folks I game with to get this occupation rolling.

Important links:

https://www.twitch.tv/nulloperations – The official stream

https://twitter.com/nulloperations – Stream announcements and schedule changes

Podcasting

Focus: Hiddennode reboot, StGM assistance, Starting the new RPG project

  • Hiddennode has been silent since November.
  • Seize the GM has reached a nice biweekly schedule
  • The New RPG podcast announcement is coming in a few minutes

We’ve been out of podcasting really since March of last year when Trish went into surgery. While we did some NaNoWriMo and Dog Days of Podcasting work, we couldn’t find the focus we needed to complete those projects. The Seize the GM work I’ve participated in is helping me to get back into the grove and the software I’m using for streaming will help me get recordings out the door quicker.

Important links:

http://www.hiddengrid.com/ – the podcast that was

http://www.hiddennode.com/ – the podcast that is

http://codexpodcast.com/ – the podcast that will be

https://www.patreon.com/hiddengrid/ – change is coming to this

http://www.seizethegm.com/ – Affiliated show, great RPG discussions. My voice returns in June/July

June Goals

  • Complete editing of Da:D
  • Weekly episodes of Hiddennode
  • Weekly episodes of Codex Podcast
  • Develop and stick to Streaming Schedule
  • Weekly blog posts here
  • Weekly updates on both patreons

The next six weeks are about getting on schedule. I’m cleaning up my language too going forward. I notice while writing these I say we, we’re, etc. I use a plural for myself when I should just say I, me, mine. I’m also taking out words like trying, going, or other “maybe” statements. The lack of definitive statements gives my mind the chance to “cheat” goals. I’ve built myself an out. So that’s two new June goals.

  • Stop using passive “maybe” language
  • Use definitive self-identifiers in my statements

I’m set to have a strong showing in June with these goals. With that the June Status Report is good to go. I hope you’ve stuck around long enough to read this, and if you have please leave me a comment. Feedback is something I’ve sought but haven’t asked for a ton. This time, I really mean it. Let me know if I’m reaching anyone out there. Let me know if my textual voice is carrying. I want to succeed, and I need your help to do it.

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The Missing Short Fiction

There’s a certain lack of flash fiction going up the last few days. I think we’re at the start of week two of the problem, and it’s not ending any time soon.

Where is the flash fiction?

Why have you forsaken us the slivers of fiction delivered thrice weekly?

I want to know what is happening in that serial piece!

Where is my ham?

Okay, I can’t help you with that last bit but I can explain what’s going on with the rest of the questions. So where is the flash fiction? Well currently all of those words are being poured into the novel project. I’ve been behind on this since January, and frankly since the sale of Novels is meant to be my primary source of income I need to double down on production. The 1,000 words going into flash each day are now going into the novel. That basically means I’m getting the bonus writing time equivalent to an extra day and a half of writing each week. That’s a lot. That means the novel is likely to be done a week or two earlier, and that translates to the book getting published earlier. You see where I’m going with this?

I haven’t forsaken the flash fiction, but in all honesty it’s had to take a back seat. I promise it will return in full once the first draft of the novel is done. I also intend to not let this happen again by developing enough of a backlog that when I have to take a month away from the flash fiction I have enough to throw into the pot. This also includes the serial fiction piece. That one is important anyway since it’s a bit of a prequel to events of the novel.

Regarding the Patreon campaign:

With the changes to flash fiction, current fulfillment on the requested fiction is temporary halted. I can’t post what isn’t written yet. I will, however post chapter 1 of the novel. This is a pre-editing, pre-second draft review version of the chapter so take it with a grain of salt. If you’re not a patreon, sign up now and you’ll get to see this right away. If you stay signed up, you’ll also get yourself a full copy of the book once it’s done.

Okay, back to work on the novel. The faster that’s done, the fast we’re back to full production of that flash fiction.